


Patchwork

by Felilla



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Phil Lester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 15:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13484214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felilla/pseuds/Felilla
Summary: The first time was an accident. The pain sharp and tangible.





	Patchwork

Dan and Phil never argued. They bickered, sure. They teased, yeah. They bantered. They countered. They joked. But they never argued. They never raised their voices at each other. They never went to bed angry. It was one of the constants in their relationship. Something that Phil could latch onto when things got rough. Because Dan and Phil never argued.

Until now.

Now, every word that passed between them was harsh and cold and loud. Well, that was mostly Dan. He would scream at Phil about something that didn’t matter and the older man would wring his hands together, trying to stutter out an apology, trying not to cry.

It didn’t work. He always ended up sprinting to the refuge of his bedroom, shoulders shaking with silent sobs and tears rolling down his cheeks. He buried his face into his pillows when his weeping got a little too loud, his bawling a little too violent.

Dan used to hold him when he cried. When bad memories got a little too vibrant or when hate comments got a little too mean.

Now, his boyfriend was a ghost. Phil sometimes heard him outside of his door, but he never knocked.

Phil didn’t have anyone to reassure him anymore and it left a sharp pain in his chest. It suffocated him, leaving him lying in bed for hours on end as he started at ceiling. He found himself unable to move in that moments, unable to think about anything except for how Dan’s arms used to hold him and how his chest didn’t always hurt like this.

Maybe that’s why he started doing it. Maybe that’s why he started hurting himself.

It started off nondescript. He banged his toe against his dresser and instead of recoiling in pain, he did it again. And again. And again. Until his foot ached more than his chest.

He didn’t know when he started hurting himself on the regular. He would scratch at his arms and legs until they were raw, embed crescents into his skin with his fingernails. Those things always healed by the time he emerged from his room, usually meeting an upset Dan. He would always return to his room and lean against his closed door as he repeated the actions.

The first drops were an accident. He dropped a mug on the floor and, in his haste to clean it up before Dan decided to seek for the source of the crash, he knicked his finger. The blood slid down his finger, red and warm. The pain was sharp and tangible. Dan found him on the floor, staring at the broken ceramic and the droplets staining their floor.

For the first time in a long time, he didn’t yell. He pulled Phil off of the ground and the older winced when hot water splashed over his cut. When he turned to face Dan, the brunette smiled faintly at him. And for a second the ache was gone and Phil felt a bubble of hope in his chest.

Dan popped that bubble a few days later when he came home with an unfamiliar man on his arm. Drunken giggles and obnoxious moans filled the apartment that night. Phil tried not to listen, he really did, but he found himself sitting on his bed, muted headphones over his ears, sobs wracking his body once again. The ache was back.

The first blade was wrestled out of a pencil sharpener. Another man that wasn’t Phil was in Dan’s room. He wondered if that man made him feel as good as Phil used to. If he knew to press gentle kisses on Dan’s neck while making love. Or if he knew to drag his nails down Dan’s spine. Or thread his fingers through Dan’s soft chestnut hair.

He needed something, anything, to dull the ache in his chest. To stop the sobs wracking his body. A moment of desperation latched onto him and he snapped the blade out of his favorite purple sharpener. He retreated to the bathroom, knowing that even Dan would notice the blood stains on Phil’s bed or on the carpet.

He was sitting in the bathtub when he first dragged the blade across the inside of his thigh. His thighs became his safe haven because Dan never saw his thighs anymore. The sting of the blade was sharp and he gritted his teeth to keep from crying out.

But it was relief that followed. All of his attention was directed on wound on his leg instead of the heartbreak in his chest. He watched red slide down white porcelain and started to put the blade aside when a loud moan rang through the house. Phil knew the sounds of Dan’s release anywhere. He added another line before he finally turned on the faucet, freezing water shooting over his skin.

At first, Phil kept track of the how many tallies he etched into his skin. But they quickly became an unintelligible mess that left Phil confused as to how many times he did it. He retreated to the bathroom at least twice a day to cut the comforting strokes into his skin. Sometimes, he imagined that he was a painter and his body was a canvas. Other times, he did nothing but tell himself how disgusting he was. That it was no wonder Dan didn’t love him anymore, if he ever did.

Nobody suspected anything. To everyone in their circle, Phil was still just Phil. Dan’s anger dwindled down, but the tense atmosphere of the house remained. Phil still cried himself to sleep before waking up and tweeting and working on videos. The scars on his skin grew, but nobody noticed.

Especially not Dan.

Maybe that’s why Phil added another ten after he and Dan somehow ended up cuddling on the couch. Because they still went their separate ways after that and Dan still hadn’t noticed.

Phil doubted he ever would.

Phil made some pasta in silence in the kitchen while Dan watched something in the lounge. Dan’s distinct laugh filled Phil’s ears. All it made him want to do is etch another mark into his skin. But he shook his head, huffing out a small “no” under his breath. Tonight, Dan promised to have dinner with him and Phil wasn’t going to throw away that opportunity.

A hand settled against his lower back and he jumped, nearly spilling the boiling water onto his hand. He furrowed his brow at the thought before he turned to find Dan smiling at him. A bright, genuine smile. Phil tried to recall the last time he saw that smile. He couldn’t. Dan reached forward, switching the stove off. “Dan?” Phil raised an eyebrow at him, forcing a smile onto his face. Did Dan not want to have dinner with him?

“I love you,” was all Dan said as his hand rubbed delicate circles against Phil’s back.

He moved closer, close enough that Phil smelled the sharp tang cologne on his skin and the vestiges of minty gum on his breath. He inhaled deeply as Dan reached up and brushed his fringe out of his face. “I haven’t said it in awhile, but…” his fingers traced their way down Phil’s jawline, sending pleasant shivers down the older man’s spine. “I truly and irrevocably love you.”

Phil’s eyes fluttered closed as Dan’s chapped lips brushed against his. A soft and quiet moment made only for them that washed away the ache in Phil’s chest. Their first kiss in eight months and Phil was soaring.

Dan pulled away, tugging at his bottom lip with his teeth. Phil wrapped his hand around the back of Dan’s neck and pulled him in for another kiss.

Whereas the first one had been chaste, a moment of purity, this one was hungry and needy. The crushing weight of loneliness finally crashed down on Phil and all he wanted was Dan. Dan. Dan. Dan. He threaded his fingers through his hair, eliciting a small moan from the younger man. They shoved away from the counter and stumbled through their flat, only pausing for seconds at time to breathe or catch their footing.

The somehow ended up in Phil’s room. Dan guided Phil onto the bed, the urgency of their passion giving way to a need to just  _be_  with each other. Phil stared up at Dan and Dan stared down at him, their chests heaving. Dan pressed a gentle kiss against Phil’s jaw, peppering kisses down his neck, behind his ear, on his nose, under his eyes. Phil didn’t protest when Dan guided his shirt off of his body, ripping off his own black T-shirt in a fluid moment.

Something nagged at the back of Phil’s mind, saying that something was different about this than the last time they were intimate, but he ignored it. He just wanted Dan to make him feel loved again.

Dan’s lips skimmed across his collarbones, along his ribs, his arms. He revisited Phil’s lips with a fevered kiss that left the black-haired man’s head spinning. “I love you,” he said when Dan pulled away.

“I love you too,” he pressed another kiss against Phil’s lips. “I’m going to make you feel good, I promise.”

His fingers fumbled with the button of Phil’s jeans as he continued to litter kisses above the waistband of his jeans. Phil didn’t bother to try and hide the gentle moans and whimpers that escaped him, grinding upwards against Dan. When Dan finally managed to undo his button and started tugging down his pants, a sharp pain shot up Phil’s leg and his eyes shot open.

He didn’t have time to stop Dan from removing his clothes. Looking back, maybe he didn’t want to stop him. Dan spoke in a low voice, his eyes trained on Phil’s face as he removed his boxers, “What do you want-”

The words ended with a choked gasp. Dan shot upwards and away as Phil dropped his head back onto his pillows, a sob bubbling in his throat. He reached for his duvet to cover himself, but Dan was faster. His fingers latched onto both of Phil’s wrists.

Phil didn’t fight him. He didn’t have the energy to fight anymore. He watched as Dan dragged his gaze away from the cuts on his legs to his wrists, turning them over as if he expected to find a patchwork of gashes there as well. When he didn’t, his eyes dropped back to Phil’s legs. “Phil?” he managed to force out and Phil hated himself in that moment, hated how terrified Dan sounded.

He directed his gaze elsewhere as silent tears slid down his cheeks. “Phil!” Dan shouted this time and Phil winced. “Please, just look at me… Look. At. Me.”

With a shaky inhale, Phil turned back to him. His chest hurt again and he wanted nothing more than to hide away in the bathroom with a blade right now. But Dan hovering above him, tears streaming down his own cheeks as his grip on Phil’s wrists tightened. “It’s nothing, Dan,” he whispered, the words sounding unconvincing and desperate.

“Nothing?” Dan’s fingers were probably bruising Phil’s skin now and he thought it was a poor substitute for steel. “How could this be nothing?”

Dan glanced down at his own hands around Phil’s wrists and released him. He didn’t even bother trying to rub away the pain. “Oh, Philly…” Dan muttered.

The anger that raced through Phil’s body surprised even him. He shoved Dan off of him, looking away when the younger boy crashed onto the floor. “Don’t,” he said, his voice dripping with venom. “Don’t pretend you care.”

He hated how his voice cracked at the end. Hated how he curled into himself when he saw Dan staring at him from the floor. Hated how disgusting he was. Hated that Dan was right to be ashamed of him, to find solace in other people because Phil knew he wasn’t good enough. He’d never been good enough for anyone, even Dan.

He sobbed into his knees, not bothering to push Dan away when he pulled the older man into his arms. Dan whispered apologies into Phil’s hair as he rocked him back and forth. “I promise I’ll do better,” he said.

Phil shook his head, “It’s my fault. Everything is always my fault.”

“No, no, no,” Dan assured him and Phil could hear the tears in his voice. A sick sense of satisfaction washed over him at the fact that Dan was hurting too. “I started this and I was stupid to think that the past months didn’t affect anything, didn’t affect  _us_.”

“I still love you, Dan,” Phil whispered against his arm, staring at his wall. “I never stopped. I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough for you. I’m sorry-”

He broke off as another wave of sobs seized his body. His grip only tightened. “I should just die,” he said, his voice muffled by Dan’s chest. “I shouldn’t make you have to deal with me. I’m just pathetic and stupid and nobody really likes me anyways.”

“Hush,” Dan said and Phil fell silent. “You’re perfect just the way you are and you don’t burden me. I love you. I love you so, so much and… We’re going to fix this. Together, we’re going to fix this, okay?”

Phil didn’t respond and they stayed like that, sitting in silence until Dan’s gentle rocking ceased and they drifted off to sleep.


End file.
